This, then, was our condition, and these were our habits, when we were rudely awakened from our dreams of peace by the roar of cannon and the clash of arms.  What wonder that the startling summons found us all unready for such a crisis?  What wonder that our early preparations to confront the issue thus forced upon us without note of warning were hasty, incomplete, and quite inadequate to the emergency?  Is it discreditable to us that we were slow to appreciate the bitterness and intensity of that hatred, which, long smouldering under the surface of Southern society, burst forth at once into a wide-spread conflagration, severing like flax all the ties of kindred, and all the bonds of individual friendship and national intercourse which had united us for half a century?  Here was a section of our Union which had always enjoyed equal rights with us under the Constitution, and had known the Government only by its blessings,—­nay, more, had actually, by the confession of its own statesmen, controlled the internal administration and dictated the foreign policy of the country since the adoption of the Constitution; which had no substantial grievance to complain of, and no fanciful injury which could not be readily redressed by legal and constitutional methods.  Are we to be blamed because we could not easily bring ourselves to believe that an integral part of our nation, with such a history, could, under a pretence so bald as to insult the common sense of Christendom, rush headlong into a war which must close all its avenues of commerce, paralyze all its industry, threaten the existence of its cherished and peculiar institution,—­in a word, whether successful or unsuccessful, inevitably result in its political suicide?  At this very moment, accustomed as we have been for many sad and weary months to the daily development of Southern folly and madness, it is difficult, when we withdraw our minds from the present, to realize that the whole war is not a hideous nightmare.

In view of all this, I ask, is it strange that we did not at once comprehend all our danger, and did not enter the field with all our forces,—­determined to fight with desperate energy until every trace of rebellion was crushed out?  If, disturbed at midnight by footsteps in your chamber, you start up from sound slumber to see a truculent-looking vagabond prowling about your room with a lighted candle, do you not at once spring to your feet, collar the intruder, and shout lustily for help, if he prove too strong for you?  Prompt and vigorous action in such a case is simply the impulse of instinct.  But how if you recognize in the untimely visitor a member of your own household?  Will you seize and overpower him without asking a single question, or waiting for a word of explanation?  Will you not pause for some overt act of hostility, some convincing proof of a fell purpose?  Suppose it transpire that he really means mischief, and you lose an important advantage by your delay to strike.  You may regret the result; but does it in the least tend to show that you were cowardly or careless?  Now was not this our exact dilemma?  Although the origin of the war and the circumstances attendant upon its commencement are a thrice-told tale, are we not in danger of overlooking their bearing upon all our subsequent action?  And shall we not act wisely, if we recur to them again and again, during this momentous contest?